1. Field of the Invention
The wet wipe dispenser of the present invention is adaptable for domestic use and, when wetted with chemical, has particular utility for institutional use such as medical facilities, hospitals, paramedic vehicles and in the food service business such as restaurants and fast food establishments.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It has been common practice to utilize cloth towels or paper wipes to clean soiled or contaminated surfaces. In some instances absorbent wipes or towels which may be made from treated polymers and may be available in web form stored in a roll and perforated at selected lengths for convenient separation for individual use.
Such towels have long been accepted for cleaning tasks and are utilized by applying a liquid disinfectant thereto for cleaning in and around health care facilities such as, for instance, wards in a hospital. Because of limited supply and the expense of laundering, there is always the temptation on behalf of the nurse or other medical technician to utilize a towel repeatedly, sometimes even in different hospital areas and even extending to different floors in the hospitals, wards which may house patients with different ailments or infections. This can result in cross contamination and contribute to and multiply infections in hospital areas where open or unhealed wounds may be particularly susceptible.
Thus, there exists a need for inexpensive wipes which may be conveniently moistened with various types of chemicals for disinfecting or cleansing purposes. In recognition of this need, many efforts have been made to provide a source of wipe, either individually packaged or wetted during the dispensing process.
In other unrelated areas of the art, it has been proposed to wet a strip of toilet paper as it rolls from a roll as by applying moisture thereto by capillary action or by spraying onto the roll as by means of a spray bar. Devices of this type are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,375,616 to Chen and in U.S. Pat. No. 5,672,206 to Gorman, respectively. Devices of this type suffer the shortcoming that the paper web or strip are often wetted to the point where they commence disintegrating even before fully dispensed or that they require a cutting device to cut the sheets of the strip to size. Cutting devices can suffer operational problems and can pose a risk of injury to the user.
Efforts to provide wetted cloth towels have led to a mechanism for a web of cloth towels with a rotary cutting device and a spray. A device of this type is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,829,278 to Koo. Such devices suffer the shortcoming that the cloth web is drawn through a rather circuitous path and the repetitive operation of the cutting device, over extended periods of time, can be problematic in that combination.
Other efforts to devise a satisfactory wetted roll dispenser has lead to a proposal that a web be drawn from a roll by means of drivers to pass in confronting relationship with a spray pad for spraying of disinfectant thereon so a treated sheet thereof may be torn from the body of the web along a sharp edge.
In further recognition of the need for wet towels, it has been proposed to roll towels in compact form to be wetted and packaged in individual packages for use by a consumer. Devices of this type are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,601,730 and 6,779,682 and 6,668,843 to Chen.
Other efforts have lead to design of a wet towel dispenser having controls for dispensing selected lengths of towels. A device of this type is apparently embodied in JAD WET TOWEL MACHINE, Model WTD-06A from Ningbo Beilun Jiada Electron Co., Ltd. Applicants have no knowledge of when this dispenser was first introduced.
From the above, it will be apparent that until now, users faced the dilemma of choosing between a prepackaged wipe or a wet towel dispenser which applied a liquid thereto at a rate which could sometimes saturate the entire towel length, often utilizing a cutting device for cutting treated towels to length or rather slow and un reliable dispensing devices.